Conversions to Orthodoxy

[Canadian75]

I guess it was time I got around to posting here. So here goes:

Baptized Roman Catholic as an infant. My mother is Anglican and my Dad is Catholic, but he is now an athiest. The only reason I was baptized in the RCC was from pressure from his family and my mom just wanted me baptized.

I went to an Anglican church as a child, but not regularly. I got interested in the RCC as a teen because some of my friends went to one (more because they were pressured by their parents).

I was 21 when some Mormons came knocking. My wife was pregnant with our second child. They re-sparked a relatively dormant spirituality. I went as far as getting to the point of scheduling a baptism in their church, but I didn't really believe in what they did so I stopped there before any commitment.

I checked out different denoms but I couldn't accept the Trinity. So I looked outside Christianity. I couldn't believe in Judaism because of Jesus, so I got a Qur'an out of the library and began reading. I had done a research project on Islam in high school and it started coming back to me.

As soon as I finished reading the Qur'an, I converted to Islam (Nov. 1997). For a year and a half I was a 'solo' Muslim. I didn't even know there was a mosque in my city. I belonged to a heretical Muslim group known as the 'Submitters'. They believed their leader (who was assasinated) was a new messenger of God. They also believed that the Qur'an was the only authority for Muslims (the 'protestants' of the Muslim world). I found a Sunni mosque and started attending. I rejected the Submitters for Sunni Islam.

I was a practicing Muslim until the late spring of 2002. I had my first panic attack and was convinced I was going to hell. I had commited many horrible sins and was not getting any better. I also began to question Islam altogether. Over the next year, I had difficulty with the oral tradition, the predestination of man, and the nature of God. Mostly I saw God as presented in the Qur'an as being an angry God who only loves the good people. The basic idea that God was unconditionaly loving was not part of Islam. For me, conditional love is inferior to unconditional love and since God is perfect, His love is perfect.


I was lost. I decided to give Christianity another shot. I went to an Anglican church with my parents and it felt right. I went for 5 weeks and then looked into the RC cathedral in town. I figured I was a baptized Catholic so I'd give them a shot. I entered RCIA and had my marriage validated, then had first confession and communion. (Oct.2003)

By January I was having more difficulties with the RCC. The main issue was the Papacy. I was doing (and still am) a degree in Medieval Studies and the history showed a different picture than the Catholics seemed to paint. I saw the Papacy more as a socio-economic development than a 'divine' right. Also, the priest would not baptize my kids until I was confirmed. Since the unbaptized couldn't get into heaven (technically according to what I was being taught) it made no sense to refuse baptism. I changed to a more liberal parish and though they later said it was not right to refuse bapism...the damage had been done.

I go to University and met many good chaplains of different denoms and faiths. I was attracted to Lutheranism because I felt a connection to Martin Luther. I became friends with the Lutheran Chaplain and joined his parish. My kids and wife were baptized on Easter 2004. But Lutheranism didn't seem right either, the solas didn't make sense entirely and history was a problem.

June 2004 I met the Orthodox priest for the first time. I got his information through the University chaplaincy. We had regular meetings and I was attracted to Orthodoxy. I went to a few DLs (one at his OCA parish and one at an Ukraknian Orthodox parish) yet felt like an outsider. I was given an offer of entering the catechuminate after a few months of discussion. I hated being cut off from the sacraments. Also, I was afraid of failure at fasting and being 'good enough'. I decided to give the RCC another shot. I returned to the liberal parish and was confirmed in Oct. 2004. It still didn't sit right. I never resolved my doubts...and there were many. I contacted the Orthodox priest again and he offered to let me enter the catechuminate for the second time. I ultimately declined out of fear.

My kids were in catechism class in the RCC and my boys were preparing for confirmation and first communion. I didn't want to keep bouncing my kids around more so I stayed. I had resolved that I couldn't stay Catholic, but I stayed so my boys could finish their class. Shortly after they were confirmed, I left. I tried going back to the Lutheran church for a while. Boy, was I confused and lost. I talked to a nice Catholic priest who showed me I could be in doubt and remain Catholic. I spent a couple more months working on the Papal question since it was the single most important doubt I had. I couldn't accept it, but I couldn't entirely deny it either. But I just couldn't remain Catholic. I tried the Lutherans again, but the writings of the church fathers didn't mesh with some important Lutheran beliefs. By now I was a ping pong ball and it took a 'revelation' to show me the fundamental error in my thinking.

The fundamental error was that protestants are children of the RCC. They all take something from the western church in one way or another. But most of all....Luther would never had started the Reformation if he was Orthodox. His ideas of Sola Scriptora, Sola Fide, and Sola Gratia were not his initial developments. His first beefs were with indulgences and then the papacy. Also, the German bible would have existed if Germany was Orthodox. Numerous grievences against the RCC were moot if he was in an Orthodox environment.


I spoke to other members of CF about Orthodoxy and then I woke up one morning and wanted to be Orthodox. I had been reading about Orthodoxy for over a year and the idea of being Orthodox had been gnawning at me for a while but I kept pushing it out of my mind. It must have broke through in my sleep because I was convinced. Once I decided I could deal with my fears then I realized I had no doubts with relation to Orthodoxy. All of my fears were mostly pointless and unfounded. I contacted the Orthodox priest for a meeting. Then I went to DL again. Then I was REALLY sure. I was praying and praying. There are numerous reasons for my becoming Orthodox and I can't boil them down in this 'survey' of my faith life. But I'm just glad I had a good relationship with my priest and he knew me very well. I am now an Orthodox catechumen and I couldn't be happier.

I might post a part 2 to explain why I love Orthodoxy. This was just a sketch of my faith journey up to today.



Peace.

 

[EricTheRed]

wow thats alot of religions canadian. Glad your finally at peace with your beliefs

 

[Canadian75]

wow thats alot of religions canadian. Glad your finally at peace with your beliefs

Didn't want God to accuse me of not being thorough.


Peace.

 

[OnTheWay]

I was raised quasi-Mormon, but after my own research concluded that the BoM is a work of 19th century fiction and also discovered from church approved sources some of the absurd notions of mormonism. Such as God lives on a planet that orbits the star "Kolob."

I went to Luthern schools up until high school. I attended a non-demom Christian high school. Whether it be the high protestant (Luthern) or Evangelical protestant churches I came in contact with I could never accept the spirit of the rejection of authority that flows through all protestantism. Also with the Evangelicals I found notions like the doctrine of the rapture to be as absurd as man made as many teachings of the Mormon church.

I began to study the Roman church was would probably have become a Roman if I hadn't found a copy of "These Truths We Hold" in a library. After a long study of everything from Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware) to Alexander Schmemann I started talking with an Orthodox priest at the local parish and am entering into the catechumenate. A long trip but I've found my way home.

 

[Xpycoctomos]

great experiences guys. thanks for sharing them!

 

[Montalban]

great experiences guys. thanks for sharing them!

You know, money says it so much better.

 

[cshaeffer]

my friend just converted

 

[Kolya]

great experiences guys. thanks for sharing them!

I agree John. these stories are simply amazing. I thought I had a hard time finding the "Door"! These were worse.

Welcome home guys, and we're stil praying for you.

my friend just converted

That's great news too. Please send him/her over to TAW!

 

[OrthoTauf]

I became a catechumen in September.

 

[choirfiend]

Glory to God! Many years to all three of you!

 

[Prawnik]

All three of us became catechumens this September.

"Tauf"

To all of you - MANY YEARS!

 

[Kolya]

All three of us became catechumens this September.

"Tauf"

That is simply amazing! But somehow after seing all these miracles of the Holy Spirit leading, it's not amazing amy more - it's profoundly awe inspiring!

Many years to all three of you.

Kolya

 

[Annoula]

All three of us became catechumens this September.

"Tauf"

very touching...

may Christ enlighten your way in Orthodoxy.

 

[vanshan]

I wrote this post in another section, but as it gives a little insight into why I became Orthodox I thought I'd paste it here too:

When did the one Church become two, then two dozen, then a thousand, then tens of thousands? If fragmentation is such a good thing, why didn't Christ start planting independent Churches immediately when He walked among us? Why didn't he establish denominations, with each having autonomy to interpret the gospel independently from the other denominations or even each congregation? Why did Paul exhort the early Christians to hold fast to the oral and written traditions that they passed down to them, if every congregation was meant to have autonomy to read and interpret scripture for themselves?

Christ didn't establish multiple denominations! To say so would be complete nonsense, which only an ahistorical bafoon could defend. Christ came to create a new covenant with God's people. He came to rescue the captives by conquering death. He came to reveal God to us. This revelation is no secret, although through the foggy filter of years of historical divisions, corruptions, and fragmentation the truth has been hidden from many of us.

I grew up protestant, but after beginning a very basic study of what happened from the Ascension of Christ through the first 11 centuries, I could no longer be protestant. I could no longer sit through another Oral Roberts University chapel, which was carefully orchestrated by men and women to lead us students through various planned emotional experiences. It became clear that all of this was so contrived, so man-made, and really man-centered, regardless of how many times they shouted out the name, Jesus. It was nothing like the intensity and powerful witness of the early church I was just discovering. I could not longer attend services centered on a preacher getting up on stage and strutting around for 1/2 an hour or more, wiping sweat from his brow, working hard to get the attention and amens from the audience. These things were nothing like the life in Christ our Fathers of the Faith had experienced and written about.

The early church was more than intellectually stimulating sermons and emotionally titilating worship, it was participation in the reality of life in Christ. Life as One Body, with Christ as it's head. A miraculous union of heaven and earth was experienced in each worship service, where men mystically were united to Christ, through communion. These men weren't sitting around trying to come up with clever, gimmicky sermons, or planning praise and worship services to create emotional responses, they simply believed the revelation of Christ, as it had been passed-down by the Apostles, they held services in the way that they were taught by Christ, and they worked hard to defend the truth from error and pass down the Church without man-made ideas and changes seeping in. What about your particular churches? What have they done? Where did they begin? Are their teachings those passed down by Christ? None are completely absent from some truth, but none have preserved the fullness of the faith.

The Roman Catholic Church departed from the Ancient Universal Church in 1054 A.D., and never returned for many reasons, including the creations of the modern Papacy, with the Bishop in Rome claiming universal authority over all Christians. Errant doctrines arose, such as original sin, immaculate conception of Mary (suggesting that this is different than the way all men are born--without sin), infallibility of the Pope, Mary as Co-Mediatrix, purgatory and indulgences, a very legalistic system of penence, substitionary atonement (suggesting that God required the death of His Son to forgive us), and more.

The Protestants had every reason to break communion with Rome, but did they return home to the Universal Church preserved in east? The Patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Alexandria, and bishoprics across the growing eastern Church were there, although geographically, linguistically, and politically divided from the west. No, they didn't come home. The began working hard to correct the corruption in Rome, but instead of preserving the truth passed down through the ages, they started to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. They didn't return to the apostolic faith given by Christ, but instead, arrogantly, or foolishly, began creating churches for themselves, based on their ahistorical interpretations of scripture and limited intellects. The intellect of man is finite, unable to see God fully.

We must not imagine doctrine, from independent readings of scripture, but instead, we must accept the revelation of Christ and His Church as He established it. We must accept, by faith, those things which are larger than our minds can wrap themselves around. For example, must accept that Christ wants us to mystically consume His Blood and Body, so that He really can abide in us and we in Him. We must accept that the Holy Spirit comes down on the bread and wine offered and miraculously transforms them into the Blood and Body of Christ. Protestants trie to lay down doctrines which made sense to their finite minds, and in so doing, they lose Christ. They say, "Christ really means this is a symbolic communion." Or they say, "the bread and wine remain as such, since they still taste like bread and wine, but somehow spiritually Christ is present in them." Why all the pandeing to our finite intellect? Why explain how the miracle Christ gave us happens? We are in communion with the God who created the Universe, the God who cannot be contained, especially in our little minds.

Faith is what we must have. Then maybe we won't be so scared to look deeper into Christ's Church and humbly kneel before Christ, becoming part of His Body, not these various man-made entities. The Church may not be what you were hoping it would be, or what you've thought it was your whole life, but it is the Church of Christ. If you love the Lord God, you will earnestly seek the truth. If you don't then you will reap the penalty for eating only of the corrupted fruit scattered by men over the last few centuries.

If any of you have made it this far, sorry so long. Forgive me. I think it's so essential to tear down the false gods we have unintentionally created by creating a gospel we could intellectually make sense of, rather than accepting the revelation of Christ, and His One Holy Apostolic Church, which is Universal, in that it is for all of us and completely fulfills the real needs of us all, if we come home to it. Be one in the Church, even as God is one in Heaven, not divided into disagreeing sects, removed from Christs historic body, whch has been preserved, but often hidden from our eyes by our cunning enemy.

Basil

 

[MariaRegina]

Wow. What a thread.

Thanks, Basil and OrthoTauf, for your inspiring posts.

 

[Kolya]

Brilliant post Basil!

 

[KATHXOUMENOS]

(See below under corrected username. KATHXOUMENOS will not be posting anything further on this forum; rather, KATHXOUMENOC will be my (corrected) username.)

 

[KATHXOYMENOC]

(When registering I incorrectly spelled my username so I re-registered under the new name, as I didn't think I could change my username. Sorry. "KATHXOUMENOS" will not be posting anything further on this forum; rather, KATHXOUMENOC is my username. Here again is my testimony, deleted from the earlier posting.)

Christ is born!

I've visited this forum for a number of months, off and on, and decided to register today.

By way of introduction as a potential/prospective convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, here is something I wrote a few months back about how we (my wife and I) became interested in the Orthodox church. It's sort of a testimony, but more of an essay.

We currently visit an OCA church and have been attending catechumen classes, though we are not yet officially catechumens.

WHY THE ORTHODOX CHURCH?
Being a short essay on some of our thoughts concerning our interest in the Orthodox Church
​

What attracted us about, or initially attracted us and continues to draw us toward, the Orthodox Church (initially both the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, but now almost exclusively toward the Orthodox Church) is its historicalness, or claim to such, which we were made aware of and have had somewhat confirmed to us by reading the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers.

As Evangelical/Charismatic Protestants (I’ll use “ECP” for short), our understanding and reading of the New Testament was almost in a vacuum - i.e., bringing 20th-century ideas and mindsets (informed by ECP scholarship and books and preaching and teaching, of course, much of which also seemed to suffer from the same shortsightedness) to our reading. Church history for us was largely the Book of Acts, and then a hop, skip and jump to the Protestant Reformation (briefly acknowledged with a tip of the hat), followed by Azusa Street (the beginning of Pentecostalism) and the Charismatic Movement. We'd heard of the "Church Fathers" but had never read them, or only just a little. We'd learned of Tyndale, Wycliffe, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Hus, the Reformers and the Reformation, etc., in high school and maybe also in college history, but had only read excerpts of their writings, or learned the parts used to support modern Protestantism - e.g., "the priesthood of all believers"; "Sola Scriptura" (i.e., the Scriptures alone are the rule of faith); "Sola Fide" (i.e., we are saved by faith alone); etc.

When we began reading the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers in earnest (well, sort of - it’ll really be "in earnest" when/if we read or read through the 38 volumes of their writings, and not just extracts), we felt we had entered another world, a world not familiar to modern ECPs.

* It called Baptism and the Eucharist "mysteries."
* It kept its central rites (esp. the Eucharist) a secret from outsiders and/or restricted them to initiates.
* It viewed the Eucharist as a sacrifice, and the bread and wine as being and being changed into the body and blood of Jesus.
* The Eucharist was in many ways the focus and climax of the worship service.
* It equated baptism with being "born again," and the concurrent chrismation (i.e., the anointing with oil), or sometimes baptism as well, with "receiving the Holy Spirit" or a "sealing."
* It had liturgical worship.
* It had a structured hierarchy, with bishops who were believed to stand in the place of Christ, and elders who stood in the place of the Apostles.
* It esteemed the Church at Rome and its bishop above the others.
* It exalted celibacy and had a special place for consecrated virgins.
* It called Mary the "Mother of God" (Theotokos), and many believed in her perpetual virginity.
* It offered sacrifices and prayers for the dead.

In other words, it looked very, very Catholic or Orthodox.

And most uncomfortable for us ... these Christians claimed that the church’s teachings and practices were what they had received directly from the Apostles - who had received them directly from the Lord, and who had passed them down faithfully to their successors. And some of these writings were by those who had been personally appointed and taught by the Apostles themselves, a fact that not even Protestant scholars contest.

(I’ve read that Calvin knew and quoted from the Church Fathers so well - St. John Chrysostom was his favorite, I recall - that he is rightly considered a Patristics (i.e., pertaining to the Early Church Fathers) scholar. Yet I suspect that, like us, few of today's ECPs, who accept much that is Lutheran or Calvinistic in thought or origin, even read these writings which were a major influence on the Reformers' faith.)

We learned that Luther and Calvin regarded baptism and the Eucharist as being sacramental and involved in one’s salvation. Yet most of the churches we’d been in that claimed to be Protestant and heirs of sorts of Luther and Calvin viewed both as merely signs or symbols, and optional. (Thus, in addition to rejecting the sacramentalism of the Early Church Fathers, ECPs apparently also have rejected the similar sacramental or "Catholic" elements of Calvin's and Luther's beliefs.)

It became philosophically and theologically troubling for us as modern ECPs to be taught to accept all the doctrinal conclusions and statements of the Early Church with respect to the nature of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, etc., but be told to reject that same Church's views of salvation and the sacraments, and church structure and worship. It seemed inconsistent to be told to reject some of the practices of these first Christians as not being "what the Bible teaches" when they were the very people who preserved and gave us the books and canon of Scripture, and who saw no discrepancy between 1) what they did and believed and 2) what they claimed the Apostles and their successors had taught them and 3) what the Bible said (and they frequently quoted from and appealed to the Scriptures in their writings). They described their beliefs and practices as what had been believed by everyone everywhere at all times - i.e., the church and its practices and beliefs were "catholic" (universal); they were the same everywhere, and always had been, they said. In fact, that was how they countered heresies and heretics - i.e., by showing that what the heretics taught was not what the church had received from the Lord and His Apostles, and that the heretics could not show that their bishops formed an unbroken line from the Apostles, and that indeed the heretics and their teachings were "a new thing."

We ECPs, too, called people like the Arians (from Arius, who taught that “there was a time when the Son was not” - i.e., the Son was a creature) and the Gnostics and Marcion and the Sabellians and monophysites "heretics." I.e., we accepted the Early Church's judgment on these sects and movements and persons, and heartily agreed with the Early Church Fathers about these things and their leaders. Yet at the same time we declared or implied that many of the commonly‑held and foundational practices and beliefs of these same Church Fathers were not "what the Bible teaches." My wife and I increasingly found it odd that we accepted their conclusions and judgments about heretics and heresies (as well as their determination as to which books should be in the Bible), but rejected their beliefs about salvation, baptism, the Eucharist, bishops, liturgical worship, etc. If they were wrong about the latter, then why did we insist that they were right about the former? The very thing that caused the True Faith to persevere and triumph (i.e., the declaration and defense by the Church and the Church Fathers of what they claimed they had preserved of the authoritative teachings of the Lord and His Apostles in their traditions and teachings and texts and practices) was what we in some measure (and in some cases in large measure) had rejected in favor of holding to "just what the Bible teaches." (Or what we or our denomination or group said it teaches!)

Hence our attraction to the Ancient Church. But not the "New Testament Church" that "Bible Protestants" were and are always trying to recreate or follow or pattern themselves after while looking only to the New Testament for their answers, a practice we followed for many years. Instead, we are trying to find and understand the church and Christianity in the company of those who were closest to the Apostles and the writings of the New Testament and/or who received their traditions and teachings, and with their insights and comments to aid and inform us.

For us it has come down to a couple questions:

* What do Christians believe, and why do they believe it?
* What do Christians do, and why do they do it?

The answers the Early Church Fathers seem to give to these questions are changing some of our assumptions, and making us question some of our beliefs and practices.

- - -

From an earlier explanation of our changing views:

To us, context and the historical/contemporary background are important. E.g., ECPs (including myself) wrangle hard and mightily to explain away the idea of baptismal regeneration, or baptism removing one's sins. They write and struggle and work to explain John 3:5 and Acts 2:38 non‑sacramentally, despite the fact that the overwhelming testimony of even the earliest Early Church Fathers (and of the church and Christians for centuries thereafter as well) was that John 3:5 referred to water baptism, and baptism was called, and effected (i.e., brought about or resulted in), being "born again," "illuminated," "sealed," "sanctified," "having one's sins forgiven," etc.

So given the fact that the New Testament can be made to read or be understood either way, we asked ourselves which was likely more correct:

1. The teaching of the Apostolic and earliest Early Church Fathers (some of whom were living and writing at the time that some of the New Testament documents were being written or being accepted into the church’s canon, and some of whom were instructed or ordained by the Apostles Peter and John) that baptism was how one was "born again" and had one's sins forgiven or washed away, and included or could include infants?

- Or -

2. The teaching of present-day ECPs that water baptism is symbolic and even unnecessary or optional (but something that believers "ought" to do as a testimony of their faith), since one’s belief is what counts; and that it's only for "believers," as opposed to infants who can't yet "believe"?

We found this situation sort of analogous to the following:

Suppose we had the writings of James Madison's friends and students, as well as the students' students, and in their writings they explained that the Second Amendment to the Constitution ("A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.") means that the citizenry is allowed to own guns and rifles. (Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was the primary author of the Bill of Rights, which included the Second Amendment.) We also have evidence that for the first 150 years of our country, everyone owned and kept guns and rifles. To this day the followers of these students teach and believe that private gun ownership was and is how to keep this country "saved," and they call themselves the National Rifle Association (NRA), as their forefathers had called themselves, and they cite the writings of Madison's friends and students in their by-laws or “catechism” (instruction).

But then about 1950, a dissenting group arose and complained that the leaders of the NRA have deceived their members by misreading and misunderstanding the Second Amendment, and wrongly teaching them to think that owning guns is the way to keep the country "saved." The dissenters say that the word "Militia" in the Second Amendment really means the official National Guard of each State, and only the National Guard troops are allowed to own and bear arms - and THAT, they say, is the best and historically‑accurate way to "save" this country and its people, and they also say that this was how this country was originally "saved."

Now, which of the two - i.e., 1) the NRA and Madison's contemporaries, etc., or 2) these modern‑day dissenters - do you think has a better idea of what Madison and the authors of the Constitution meant and intended, and has a better basis for their position? Remember, both groups are reading the same text (i.e., the Second Amendment), and both groups are basing their arguments on their reading and understanding of that same text.


- - -


I apologize for this sounding perhaps more like an argument for the Orthodox Church vis-a-vis modern Evangelical/Charismatic Protestantism than a personal testimony, but our testimony includes and has been influenced by thinking about these things after being ECPs for 25+ years.

 

[moses916]

Welcome to TAW KATHXOUMENOC

 

[Annoula]

welcome KATHXOUMENOC!!!

indulge yourself in the mysteries and sensuality of Orthodoxy.